Like most things, unless you actively seek information on energy issues you're probably ill-informed. The tangential quotes and soundbites in most media reports aren't enough to keep you abreast of real concerns and real solutions. They're just small nuggets of often, unrelated information.
That's why our Energy 101 features, are a full hour spent with an energy insider. We're not interested in eight-second soundbites - we want to know what they know - whether we agree or not, so that all of us can be better informed.
This week, our guest is Robert Rapier, an energy strategist, and chemical engineer with twenty years experience in fossil fuel and bio fuel technology. Rapier has built a reputation for his ability to analyze and evaluate startup energy companies on behalf of investors. When he says an idea is worth investing in, people listen. As he tells us in our interview, his yeses are quite rare.
Tune in to hear his predictions and concerns on the U.S. natural gas reserves. As a result of a long cold winter, the natural gas storage report shows that this was the largest draw on storage on record and supplies are far below the five year range.
"By next winter, and if we have another cold winter like this one, we will have natural gas prices like we haven't seen in years."
We also discuss the impact of the Keystone XL pipeline and which concerns are real or imagined.
"All the safety studies will show that it is more dangerous, there are more deaths per barrel of oil shipped by rail, than there are shipped by pipelines. The sad irony is... by stopping these pipelines and forcing more oil onto rail you're killing people. I mean, they think that if we stop this pipeline, we're actually going to stop the production. But that's not what happens, because the demand is still there."
Rapier also reminds us that the United States already has seventy-five such pipelines crossing boarders. They are among a network of pipelines criss-crossing the entire nation, 50 times the length of our interstate highway system.
Rapier also writes extensively. You can find his RSquared Energy blog at EnergyTrendsInsider.com 
and more of his writing at Investing Daily.com, as well as contributions to Forbes and the Wall Street Journal.
He is also an active poster on Twitter @RRapier
Listen Saturday at 10:00 AM on KNUS 710 – Please let us know what you think of our program, either by commenting here or on Facebook at Connect & Collaborate with ICOSA or join the discussion on Twitter @ICOSAMagazine.